of men and the MONSTERS within, a BANDAID for the PAIN
by raistss
Summary: Another ficlet written when inspiration struck. Explains my take on what happened before the movie - the bandaid, the mentioning of specific things throughout the film, ect. Rated T for thematic elements.


Before Andrew Laeddis got his fantasy-come-true treatment, he was on a combination of drugs meant to keep him from getting violent, but it was only intermittently effective. The pain of his wife killing his children and him killing his wife turned out to be too much even for his war and police-hardened brain.

He blocked it out, creating an elaborate fantasy structure in which his wife was murdered, he had no children, he was a detective looking into the escape of a patient with his partner, who in actuality was his primary psychiatrist. But sometimes the calm of his fantasy would fail, and the real Andrew Laeddis, who killed his wife, would come out.

In the end, his outbursts became too frequent, as the drugs and the hydrotherapy and the electric chair did not help, and he was led, shackled and howling, to Ward C, while the doctors and overseers decided what to to about him. They dragged him up the stairs, not caring about the scrapes and cuts his body was taking, and through the dark wet building that echoed with the howls and cries of other patients.

All Laeddis saw, though, was Dolores trailing behind him in her yellow dress, with her blonde hair sopping wet and her green eyes alive with feverish pleasure. She talked to him in her slow, sultry way, and he howled with the other patients, partly from fear of his surroundings, partly from the pain consuming his heart and soul at the sight of her.

One of the men holding him kicked him and told him to shut up, but his eyes were wide and frenzied and he paid the man no mind. He was brought to a cell, occupied by another man, who was curled up in the corner and rocking himself.

The man who'd kicked him grinned maliciously, his yellow teeth stirring enough fear in the depths of Laeddis's stomach to make Dolores fade away like ashes in a storm. The men opened the gate, tossing Laeddis into the cell and laughing.

The man in the corner stopped rocking abruptly, uncurling himself and standing up to his full height, towering over Laeddis. Andrew gazed up at the figure, feeling the instinct to run, but there _was_ nowhere to run. The man crouched down, staring Laeddis over before scratching his head as quick as a cat. The next thing Laeddis knew, a migraine, not held back by his medication, was pounding through his head, and he curled up as the man had before, screaming with the nails shaking in his brain.

His cellmate backed away, no longer threatening him but feeling threatened himself. Laeddis couldn't think clearly; pictures flashed before his eyes, bright and incomprehensible. Others in the building joined his agonized cries, not from their own pain, but from their sorrows, their regrets, their angers. It was a chorus of agony, and Laeddis led it, unwillingly. Eventually he threw up, passing out from the pain.

* * *

His dreams were empty that night, and when he awoke, he was slumped against the cell bars, his body as achy and sore as his head. When he touched his hand to his temple, he noticed three things: his hand was bruised and bleeding, all of his clothes except his underwear were gone, and his forehead was caked in blood as well.

He tried to sit up, but the world lurched and he dry heaved. His cellmate, he noticed, was now clothed and sleeping in the corner normally. Anger welled up in him, an animal anger that pulled him up onto his feet. The anger propelled him towards the other man, towards punching him.

The man woke up, startled, and Laeddis beat and kicked and screamed at the man until he surrendered the clothes, now afraid of the migraine-fed man that was Laeddis. Andrew dressed himself, then sat in the corner by the gate, hallucinating and trembling and aching and talking to the fictional characters in his head and crying when Dolores clawed her way back into his thoughts like a vicious creature, claws tearing at the few bits of sanity he still had left in him.

Lunch came and food was brought to their cell and Laeddis ate all of it, since the other man refused to go near him. He stayed for an hour before another man, an orderly, and doctor Sheehan all came to his door.

He was let out and guided to the dispensary, where his wounds were cleaned and bandaged - at least, his head injury was. He was shaved and his hair was trimmed, and he was allowed to shower.

Doctor Sheehan led him to a small grey room, and he lay down on a soft blue bed, his brown suit and ugly floral tie that Dolores had given him rumpling and wrinkling. Doctor Sheehan explained something to him that he did not hear, and he was given a shot of some kind that knocked him out completely.

* * *

When he awoke, he was Teddy Daniels and he was throwing up on a boat headed to Shutter Island.


End file.
